Europe

I think we are at a point now where almost everybody in Europe is able to speak at least some English. So cultural exchange has never been easier. Why make it more difficult again by adding another language people have to learn first?

It’s not possible to please everybody so I vote for Basque and pleasing nobody.

A lingua franca isn’t decided upon, it just happens to become one because of some power its speakers hold. In the Indonesian archipelago, Malay became a lingua franca because it was used by traders. In Europe, French was a lingua franca because French held a large amount of prestige among the European nobility. Now, English is the global lingua franca because English-speaking media have dominated the global media landscape.

If you want there to be another lingua franca in Europe, that language will somehow need to attain a good reason for it to become one. You can’t just pass a law proclaiming it now being ‘the lingua franca of Europe’.

Forcing people to speak eg. German by law might work, though you’ll probably have to be prepared to coerce people into actually doing so, and thus will have to ask yourself whether that’s worth it. Otherwise, there’s a good chance people will not really give a shit about your stupid law.

You could also maybe abolish all EU level accommodation for other languages than the official language in a new federalised Europe. Then, if you want anything done at that level, you have no choice but to use the official, non-English, language. This seems like it might spur an elitist environment where only a small layer of Europeans (outside of the country from which the speakers of the official language originate) will generally be able to speak that language.

This all seems a bit fantastical, though. Unless Europeans en masse stop consuming English language media, and at the same time start consuming the media of one specific other language (thus it’s a movement away from English and toward some other language by language users themselves), there won’t be a new lingua franca in Europe.

English has a blend of Germanic and Romantic features, which is nice for Europe, and no inflections to memorise, which is nice in addition. You could also argue that no grammatical gender is a positive feature.

On the downside, the orthography is ass, so maybe there should be a new EU-standard fonetik version. The contractions are confusing. A non-native speaker can maybe add some more, but that's all I've heard about.

No, most people are pragmatic in this case and eastern countries changed from Russian ~30 years ago so another change isn't coming any time soon.

As my parents saw the change from "it is really appreciated that you can speak English" to "it is expected that you can use it". I can tell that it is so engrained in our multinational exchange that it won't be even desirable.

English is mostly used in commercial now, changing it would be costly and you would need the commitment of many others people to accept a new change in how to approach the world or just Europe, it's a tipe of commitment I doubt people would be willingly to accept.

We will probably see another language become the lingua franca

That's gonna take a while. Chinese is an unlikely candidate due to how difficult it is to learn to speak and especially read and write, despite the rising international influence of the Chinese state. And I rather doubt that Europe's Germanic-speaking countries will stop using English as a lingua franca anytime soon, it's just too easy to learn for them compared to any other possible candidate.

Let's hope it's not going to be Russian anytime soon.

Something like Esperanto would be a nice alternative for the EU, though. Maybe there's other artificial languages that are even better? I'm not well-versed in this topic.

The Year of Esperanto is finally upon us! Bonan Matenon, Europe!

Yes. It's easy and already established. There is no reason to change it.

let's all switch to Sumerian.

Question is, what should be the criteria for deciding which other language?

If it is for the sake of current global usability, English remains top.

If it is for geostrategic considerations, Spanish, French and Arabic would be the languages to cover South and Central America, large parts of Africa and West Asia.

If it is for population dominance inside the EU, it would be German, which probably will ruffle some feathers. If it is for population dominance in Europe, it should be Russian, which will ruffle a lot of feathers.

They should just stick with speaking American.

/Dodges shoes and runs away

English if we want ease of communication (and is the most likely path forward)

Esperanto if the goal is to teach it to a whole generation: it is designed to be easy to understand when you already know one European language (especially a latin one I think?)

Chinese if the goal is to speak the language of the dominant non European power in the next century

Latinam magnam iterum faciamus. 😎 🥂 🧐

I'm too lazy to learn another language. Pick from English and Polish, alright?

But what instead? Spanish? German? Esperanto?

@atro_city I remember a few years ago there was a French far-right group or something that proposed Latin to be the lingua franca instead, lol. But I haven't heard anything since.

Logical thinking I would think English should stay. It is by far the most known foreign language in Europe.

As another person said, this is bad use of terminology. Lingua franca is decided by the people through natural use, not by governance.

Would be great to switch to mandarin. /s for all you humourless.

English is good for the reasons pointed out. Also: It's no language of the EU (at least for now) so no country gets an edge over the others which should be considered too. (I'm a native German speaker)

G'day from Australia, please don't cut our borderless monolingual Island off. Kiwi's probably feel similar too.

Given how western society is doing, Mandarin might not be a terrible call.

Isn't the new official EU language irish English? I speak english with heavy german accent, can this be the ligua franca?